Tuesday, 29 March 2011

It appears the idea of a "too black" school doesn't sit well other non-whites, particular Asians. From the Toronto Starwe read:

Some Oakwood Collegiate students warn that opening a proposed Africentric high school there could rebrand it as a largely “black school” and discourage others from attending, reducing its cultural mix.

“Unfortunately, some people are racist and I know for a fact a friend who's Asian, whose parents wouldn't send them to a school that's unofficially labelled as black,” said Grade 11 student Matteo Ferrero-Wong, who is of Chinese and Italian descent.

[...]

Senior Toronto school board staff scrambled to do damage control Monday at Oakwood, where student panic over a proposal to open an Africentric alternative high school in part of the building has sparked a Facebook petition with some 320 names as well as brief rumours of a wildcat student strike.

The petition can be found here and judging from the names it appears there is a white/Asian coalition against the idea.

The reason given for converting part of Oakwood C.I. into an Africentric school is to address the 40% drop out rate for black students who constitute 40% of a student body where 60% are non-white. The implication is that the high drop-out rate for blacks is an institutional failure, not a failure of the homes who produce these underachievers. Since I can never recall a time where the black community accepted responsibility for its short comings, choosing instead to avert blame by pointing their fingers at everyone around them, it's only understandable society's institutions are at fault and need correction. But I digress.

Ferrero-Wong's friend, Fadzai Masvosva, is black and from Zimbabwe.

Masvosva agrees an Africentric alternative school “would make the school less diverse because more of the black students would stay and the white and Asian kids' parents would send them somewhere else. Some people say if the population is more black, it makes some people feel less safe.”

Macleans Magazine took heat for its "too Asian" issue a while back from Canada's Asian population. The insinuation was that Canada's "too Asian" university campuses do more to drive students away than attract them. I have personal experience with this.

I once took a tour of the University of Toronto's main downtown campus. In my small tour group of about six individuals there were three young white Brazilian women who were in Toronto at the time to participate in an English immersion program. At the end of the tour our student guide asked us what we thought of the school. One of the Brazilian women spoke frankly and said, in her laboured English, she liked the campus but there were too many Asians at U of T (I kid you not!). Her frankness made me smile but our guide, who was a white male, didn't know how to respond and therefore didn't.

In another instance I was at the offices of The Varsity, a student run newspaper at U of T. I was waiting to speak with someone and was looking around the operation which was empty and quite at the time save for a conversation that was happening in a small adjacent room. Pinned to a wall at someone's desk was a newspaper clipping that quoted the then president of the university. He was quoted as saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that many white students skip U of T, choosing to go to Queen's or elsewhere, due to its sizable non-white student body. The clipping hung there to out white male bigotry but the man was just speaking truthfully and meant no offense. But his words still say much.

Funny, then, to see Asian parents threatening to remove their kids from a school were it to be considered "too black". It seems "too Asian" is okay but "too black" is not.

What is happening at Oakwood C.I. has been repeated in neighbourhoods all across Toronto and the surrounding area. Any neighbourhood that has lost its white majority status has become less appealing to everyone except to those who share the racial background of the new majority. When a neighbourhood goes Asian, it drives everyone out who is not while attracting those who are. When a neighbourhood goes Indian, it drives everyone out while attracting only those who are. This is how the balkanization of Toronto is being accomplished. The only neighbourhoods that consistently attract those of all racial backgrounds, especially Asian, are white majority neighbourhoods. These are the ones that are held up as "proof" that multiculturalism works but as more and more non-whites move in, the more whites move out to other white majority neighbourhoods leaving the one they left behind to become another ethnic ghetto.

It appears racial minorities are more comfortable in a "too white" environment than any other save one where they are the dominant. One has to wonder how attractive Canada will be were it to become "too Asian", "too black", "too Indian", etc. Will Asians immigrate to a non-white Hispanic/black majority United States, or just to the white majority parts of it? Will Asians immigrate to Canada or just the Asian and white parts of it? Canada's white majority status is an asset to attracting immigrants from all over the world. I don't see much value in losing it.

So far there are 52 comments to this thread but only 46 get displayed. I believe each post has a size limit and it was reached. I don't know if this is the case since I'm really lazy with this blogging thing and haven't researched its technical capabilities and limitations in depth.

I don't know how to rectify this. If anyone knows how let me know. But if you have anything to say better save it for another thread.

Saturday, 26 March 2011

Apparently the Conservatives are now the gay community's party in Ottawa. And in an election year, no less. What are the odds!?

Isn't this the same party that held a House vote to recognize marriage as a union between a man and a woman? Didn't it vote against same sex marriage legislation? And didn't it pull funding for Toronto's gay pride festivities in 2010?

Liberals, Conservatives, it's like trying to tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke nowadays; in the end you're still getting a soft drink.

Now, go ahead and tell me immigration has nothing to do with politics and elections. Go ahead and tell me, I dare ya!

When I first heard about the Canadian Human Rights Museum and who was pushing for its development I concluded that upon completion it would be another Holocaust memorial that gives a polite nod to other genocides, under the auspices of diversity and inclusion, while deeming them of lesser value. This, all the while being heavily dependent on tax dollars for its survival.

It appears I wasright about the first assumption and will be proven in time to be correct about the second (it's pretty much a given).

According to news reports plans for the museum specify a separate place for the Holocaust within it, singling it out for special attention, while all other genocides are to be lumped together in an all inclusive exhibit. The implication is that the Holocaust is exceptional compared to all other acts of genocide and thus more deserving of reflection and reverence. As for other genocides, well, they're all pretty much the same so we will just stick them all into that corner over there and out of the way. After all, we don't want people to trip over them and hurt themselves.

Ukrainian groups are not amused because they have their own Holocaust to brag about. Called the Holodomor, it was an event that witnessed a man made famine in the Ukrainian SSR during 1932-33. Death tolls range from anywhere between 1.2 million to 12 million in a campaign led out of Moscow to wipe out ethnic Ukrainians in an act of genocide. There are more Canadians who are of Ukrainian extraction than there are those who are Jewish so it is reasonable to argue that the Holodomor should occupy a space for itself as well.

How many Canadians died in the Holocaust? How many Canadians died in the Holodomor? Why are Canadians building a museum to memorialize these events? Why are Canadians bickering about which genocide is more important than another? If we're all Canadians than why has this become controversial?

On the plus side polls suggest the Holocaust should not be given a special place but should be apart of a display showcasing all acts of genocide. This just illustrates, yet again, that those in decision making positions are grossly out of touch with the values of the majority of people.

What is disconcerting about this is how even after generations within Canada some Canadians still identify with an ancestral homeland where, I doubt, many of have ever visited (or can locate on a map) and this is the core issue here. This is the fruit of multiculturalism and the immigration system that gives it its breath. How can we function as a coherent nation when the country is divided along ethnic lines all trying to advance their special interests? This is something that should be considered as the foreign born population swells in the coming decades. The Human Rights Museum is proving to be more of a symbol of division than understanding but isn't that what multiculturalism accomplishes anyway?

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

I think Conservative Party strategists reminded Jason Kenney that 2011 may very well be an election year so he had to back-peddle on his initial plan to reduce family class immigration by 5% and increase it instead. Here's the scoop.

In fact, the Harper government is planning to increase family class immigration this year.

We believe in the importance of family reunification as one of the objectives of Canada’s immigration policy.

That’s why, in the 2011 immigration plan I tabled in Parliament late last year, which remains in effect today, I made clear we are increasing our planning range for family class immigrants to allow up to 65,000 immigrants into Canada.

That’s an increase from the 59,029 who were admitted in 2010; and not, as you call it, a “cutback.”

Within the family class, our government is putting wives, husbands, and children first.

That means more dads, mums, and children being reunited with their loved ones than in previous years.

In the five years the Harper government has held office, the average number of immigrants admitted under the family class each year has been 63,476.

That is significantly higher than under the six years prior to that when the Liberals held office, during which the annual average was 60,224 immigrants.

Unlike the Ignatieff Liberals, our government doesn’t just talk about the importance of immigration, we actually take steps to welcome more immigrants to Canada, and help them succeed once they arrive.

Hon. Jason Kenney, PC, MP

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Note the braggadocio tone of the letter. Also note how politicized it is.

Hands up if you think Jason Kenney is a tool. Keep them up if you think the Conservative Party has been an absolute disappointment on the immigration issue. The Conservative and Liberal parties are pretty much the same party in Canada now with a slight difference in taste like Pepsi is to Coke.

The family reunification class has been a prime contributor to increasing poverty rates within immigrant communities since those who enter Canada this way need no pertinent job skills and language skills. Thus, Canadians are forced to pay for their skills upgrade just to give them a fighting chance in the job market which translates into years of below par productivity and heavy public subsidy. But they do work on the cheap. And the Conservatives plan to bring in more of them during a slowdown in the economy. And this is saying nothing of the negative effects this has on Canada's working poor, recent immigrant arrivals, on our health care system and public school system.

They are also future voters which is what this is all about (and Jason Kenney's future run for leader of the Conservative party). Indeed, be they Conservative or Liberal or NDP, immigration is first and foremost a voter importing mechanism. Go ahead and tell me it isn't.

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Canada's first nation's peoples occupy a paradoxical place in the immigration question. On the one hand they are used to justify immigration (from non-traditional sources) while on the other hand they are used to shame Canada for being a nation founded on "stolen land". They serve to justify immigration while questioning its legitimacy at the same time. Whatever the case may be aboriginals serve as stones to be thrown at Canada's host white majority population to undermine its legitimacy and place in Canadian society.

We've all heard it. The saying goes, "all Canadians are immigrants expect native Canadians." The intent of this statement is to conflate everyone who is not native Canadian into an immigration narrative as if the first European settlers and the next batch of immigrants to arrive tomorrow are one and the same. This view is too simplistic and it is superficially true but the issue is more complex than that albeit not hard to understand.

Simply put immigrants today are coming to a country that is, for the most part, different from the one they left. (This isn't entirely true since too much immigration from too few source countries has created what are de facto colonies on Canadian soil. We give them cute names like Chinatown or Little Italy but they are extensions of foreign nations into Canadian territory due to the anti-assimilated behaviour of those who arrived. It is colonialism, at least culturally, but we give these immigrants/colonialists citizenship which allows us to pretend colonialism isn't happening.) This isn't too dissimilar from what the first European settlers experienced when they left their native countries and arrived in Canada. They arrived and entered into a host society constituted of the indigenous peoples who populated the land. As the European presence grew it eventually overshadowed the indigenous host society only to replace it and itself become the host society that we, and the world, have come to be familiar with. That host society is a European presence in a North American context.

That host society is what immigrants today are entering into and since the vast majority of immigrants to Canada today are from what are called non-traditional sources, meaning non-European sources, history seems to be repeating itself. What we have is the mass introduction of a people, predominately Asian, into a host society dissimilar from itself. This mass introduction, if history truly repeats itself, will overwhelm the host society and eventually replace it creating a new majority and new national identity, a "new Canada" if you will (what was wrong with the old one?)

There are those who object to this prospect (such as myself and I believe the majority of Canadians as well) and this is where native Canadians become a useful tool to deflect opposition. You see, if we are all immigrants (except native Canadians of course) then who are Canadians, especially white Canadians in whose faces link Canada to its historical settler foundations, who are they to complain when non-European immigrants do what their European forefathers did: settle and colonize indigenous lands? If Europeans settled on "stolen lands" then why not Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Nigerians, etc.? Immigration is colonialism's legacy; it is colonialism just expressed in another word. If we are all immigrants (and if no one is illegal) then the next person to immigrate to Canada is a colonizer since he or she have every intention to settle on stolen indigenous lands.

The great hypocrisy in all of this is that those who justify their presence in Canada by invoking the native Canadian card are often from countries who have suffered from colonialism as well; a negative period in their histories from which many nations have not yet recovered. Yet, they see no parallel in what they are doing here in Canada. You see, colonialism is only bad when it's happening to you. When you're the one doing it and have a lot to gain from it then that's different.

In this vein immigration isn't population growth but population replacement; it isn't immigration but colonialism. This is doubly true for immigrants today who are not only colonizing "stolen" indigenous lands but are contributing to the colonization of the host society that replaced the indigenous one that preceded it. And this is done with tacit government approval in the guise of multiculturalism.

Since Canada was founded on "stolen land" it is odd to hear immigrants (even the children of immigrants and aren't we all children of immigrants?) accuse Canada of being anapartheidstate. I have heard this hypocritical nonsense before from Arab and Palestinian rights groups operating on Canadian universities. Their arguments are made bankrupt by the fact that they make these statements while benefiting from the fruits awarded to them by the alleged apartheid state of Canada simply by living here. By immigrating to Canada immigrants express their approval of the colonization of "stolen lands" (as long as its not theirs) and wish to be apart of it. If the rights of indigenous Canadians are really a concern for them the only way they can be taken seriously is if they pack their bags and make their denouncements from the lands of their ancestors. However seeing how the individual in this case, one Chadni Desai, is south Asian then maybe she should get her own housein orderfirst before moral grandstanding here in Canada.

Any way you look at it immigration is colonialism if you are native Canadian. And they are still losing out because of it. In thisSaultStar article First Nations chiefs attack the immigration system as a disservice to Canada's indigenous peoples.

First Nations chiefs slammed the federal and provincial governments Monday for efforts to attract and to educate immigrants in light of education and other funding shortfalls faced by natives in this country.

"It has been been mentioned here many times how many millions of dollars they are pouring into bringing people to this country when we've got the demographics of a young population that's a ready workforce that needs the capacity, that needs the education," Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee told a crowd at an education rally Monday that stopped traffic east of the city for a little less than two hours. "We could take advantage of the energy sector, we could take advantage of mining, forestry."

Madahbee complained that during a recent hospital visit he saw no Anishinabe people working in higher-paying jobs.

"If there's any Anishinabe working there at all, they're working in custodial positions. Where are they in the labs? Where are they as doctors? We need education," said Madahbee.

This dismay was expressed in response to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's intention to "spend $30 million over the next four years to provide scholarships to international students completing doctorates at Ontario Universities."

The moral exhibitionists who make allegations that Canada is an apartheid state oftentimes harbour liberal views regarding immigration as if the two points of view are not connected in some way. If there was any sincere concern for the issues facing Canada's native community then advocating lower immigration targets and forcing the government to look to Canada's indigenous population to satisfy labour shortfalls would be prominent. This would help lift them out of their third world status. But aside from us racist immigration reformers this option is never made by those who pretend to care. Indeed, immigration pushes native issues further and further off the political radar because as a political voting block they do not matter compared to voter rich urban centers where the majority of Canada's immigrants reside. And I don't see this changing anytime in the future. For native Canadians it's more of the same: more immigrants, more colonialism, the beat goes on.

But does anyone even truly care about native issues? It seems when First Nations chiefs speak no one cares to listen. Perhaps it's because when they do their responses are uncomfortable. What good is immigration to native Canadians when it continuously displaces them from jobs that they could be trained for? What good is immigration if it marginalizes native Canadians politically and removes their concerns from mainstream discourse to make room for hijabs, and kirpans, and silly Chinese superstitions? What good is immigration to native Canadians at all if ever? It's easy to dismiss white Canadians who disagree with immigration. It's not so easy when even the indigenous population sees no benefit to the immigration system as well so we'll ignore them, just like we always do.

Thursday, 3 March 2011

This report out of the U.K. reveals that the Labour party knew of and covered up negative conclusions about mass immigration to the U.K. while it was in power.

Labour is today accused of a ‘shocking’ cover-up over the impact of years of mass immigration as damning official research buried by the last government is revealed.

Ministers will publish three reports commissioned at the taxpayers’ expense by Labour politicians – but then apparently ‘sat on’ because of their inconvenient conclusions.

Government advisers concluded immigration had depressed wages, threatened to increase community tensions and seen many incomers stay longer than intended.

Since Canada foolishly (and naively) accepts more immigrants per-capita than any other country in the world I doubt the conclusions would be much different here.

Indeed, some data point us to that reasonable assumption. For instance, this wikipedia entry provides some valuable insight.

According to this StatsCan report "a migration-induced shift of 10% in the supply of labour is associated with a 3% to 4% movement of wages in the opposite direction. International migration, in other words, raises a country’s wages whenever it decreases the size of its workforce; it lowers wages whenever the opposite is true." Putting it bluntly, immigration driven population growth drives incomes down.

Trying to put a positive spin on this "inconvenient conclusion" the "brain-trusts" at the Montreal Gazette inform us immigrants improve pay equality in Canada. How do they do this? By driving the incomes of professionals down towards the income levels of those who earn less. Since Canada, allegedly, places emphasis on education and training the immigration system technically favours those with professional credentials. This has resulted in the over-supply of skilled labour, like IT and engineers, allowing employers to pay them less. From the StatsCan report we read "immigration played arole in the 7% drop in real weekly wages experienced by workers with post-graduate degrees in Canada between 1980 and 2000. Over this period the immigrant share of all workers with post-graduate degrees in Canada increased; between the 1986 and 2001 censuses they report that this share rose from 32.5% to 38.2%."

In relation to the above the OECD concluded in a 2008 study titled Growing Unequal?: Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries that in Canada "after 20 years of continuous decline, both inequality and poverty rates have increased rapidly in the past 10 years, now reaching levels above the OECD average." I'm sure immigration had nothing to do with that.

From this ironically pro-immigration site we read the following summary.

Analysis of census data as of 2000 shows that immigrant incomes were at 80% of the national average after 10 years of residing in Canada.In previous decades, immigrant income levels did rise to the national average after 10 years, but in recent years the situation has deteriorated. A 2003 study published by Statistics Canada noted that "in 1980 recent immigrants had low-income rates 1.4 times that of Canadian born, by 2000 they were 2.5 times higher, at 35.8%."The study noted that the deterioration was widespread and affected most types immigrants. The 2003 study explains that the low-income rate among non-immigrants declined in the 1990s, but this was more than offset by the income profile of new immigrants, resulting in a net rise in Canada's total low-income rate. An updated January 2007 study by Statistics Canada, explains that the deterioration continued into the next decade, with the low-income rate of recent immigrants reaching rates of 3.5 times that of Canadian born in 2002 and 2003, before edging back to 3.2 times in 2004. The 2007 study explains that this deterioration has occurred even though Canada implemented changes in 1993 to encourage more highly educated immigrants, with 45% of new immigrants having university degrees as of 2004, compared to 13% in the early 1990s.

We also read "recent immigrants are also significant users of subsidized housing, with 42% of immigrants who arrived after 1990 having a "core need" (as defined by CMHC) for subsidized housing as of 2001 compared to 17% for the non-immigrant population."

Furthermore:

In 2001, the overall unemployment rate of immigrants was 37%. Combined with the overall participation rate of 70%, this means that only 44% of landed immigrants aged 15 years and higher were working in 2001 (i.e., a majority of 56% were not working). The 44% employment rate was significantly lower than the average 2001 employment rate in Canada of 61%. Immigrant unemployment levels do not reduce to the Canadian average during at least the first 10 years of residing in Canada.

Then, of course, who can ignore the The Fraser Institute's claim "that immigrants who arrived between 1990 and 2002 cost governments $18.3 billion per annum (as of 2002) in excess of taxes raised from those immigrants."

Has much changed in the last decade?

It is clear that when it comes to immigration Canadians are the ones bearing most of the costs and the majority of the benefits are going to immigrants. This is made more true when we consider that the majority of immigrants to Canada come from the developing world and immigrating to Canada moves them from an environment of low consumption to one of high consumption (as the saying goes it's better to be poor in Canada than poor in the third world). Mass immigration, as has been demonstrated, is having a negative effect on Canadian livelihoods while nursing social tensions. It is reckless to continue down the path that the nation's politicians have, in their arrogance and self-interest, undemocratically steered the populace. Sadly, it's see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil in Ottawa. It is abundantly clear that Canada accepts too many immigrants, especially the wrong type of immigrant, and has been doing so for a very long time.

They say immigrants built Canada. If that is the case then immigrants can also ruin it.

Here is another story about immigrant caregivers abusing Canadians and cheating the immigration system.

Fernandes, 45, believes new federal regulations introduced last April have left Canadian employers more vulnerable to a relative handful of unscrupulous individuals who are using the caregiver program as a front to enter the country.

His nanny said she knew no one in Canada, which is why Fernandes was shocked to encounter a group of strangers at his door, claiming to be her relatives. They accused him of abuse and demanded she leave with them.

The situation ended with police in his hallway, asking his nanny if she had been mistreated.

His caregiver left a week later after her "relatives" showed up again. When Fernandes complained to immigration authorities and his MP, he was told it was between him and his caregiver.

"The sad thing is, bad people can get away with this," he said. "The government is doing nothing."

Confronted with an aging population and the soaring cost of daycare, Canadians who need help caring for their loved ones are turning more and more to the live-in caregiver program, which has its own specialized category within the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The caregiver program can lead to permanent residence for applicants who successfully complete 24 months or a total of 3,900 hours of authorized full-time employment.

The changes made by the Conservative government last year shifted more financial responsibility onto would-be employers to improve protections for caregivers.

As a result, employers are now required to pay for a caregiver's medical coverage, airfare, recruitment fees and health insurance — the bill usually totals between $3,000 to $4,000 — and agree to a contract outlining clear overtime provisions.

Successful applicants get a four-year work visa, but have no legal obligation to remain with the family that brought them in.

Immigrant caregivers should be categorized for what they really are which is temporary foreign workers. It should not be a backdoor into Canada and a path to permanent residency. They are typically dispossessed of any marketable job skills and have little intention of staying as caregivers once their permanent residency papers come through. Thus, the caregiver program accomplishes nothing more than to flood the Canadian job market with unskilled labour and their equally unneeded relatives. Like the refugee system, it is just another hole in the border undermining Canadian sovereignty.

Jason Kenney, in his immigrant vote buying foolishness, decided to make it easier for these individuals to get citizenship. The result has been a stronger incentive to cheat the system and abuse Canadians for a quick and easy ride into shopping mall Canada. If nothing is done about it, like removing the permanent residency carrot, then these kinds of abuse stories will come to characterize the live-in caregiver program.

Canadians could also, you know, raise their own children but I know that is asking for too much.